A Human-Centred, Multidisciplinary, and Transformative Approach to Service Science: A Service Design Perspective

The increasing complexity and human centeredness of service systems raises new challenges to decision makers, requiring the integration of multidisciplinary efforts while addressing the dynamic reconfiguration of actors for value co-creation. This chapter uses a case study investigation into the practice of an Italian service design agency to expand on the understanding of service design as a human centred, multidisciplinary, and transformative approach for service system innovation. The study illustrates how service design can move from being a disciplinary field to become an overarching approach and a cultivated horizontal skill able to favour multidisciplinary integration; also the evolution in the understanding of service from a given market offering or output, to a dynamic condition of value exchange and co-creation, qualifies service design as an “accompanying” service for clients in their transformation journey that enables the collaborative co-creation of value; as a result of this exploratory case study, service design is depicted as a continuing, collaborative and flexible innovation approach that constantly adjusts depending on the level of engagement and alignment of the key partners and the need to nurture the evolving dynamics of value co-creation for service system transformation.